Maintenance of the normal flora of human skin grafts transplanted to mice

Abstract

Full-thickness human cadaver skin was maintained on the dorso-lateral thoracic region of hairless mice whose immune rejection mechanism was suppressed using anti-mouse-thymocyte globulin. The bacterial profile of the pregrafted skin did not differ significantly from the normal human microflora. In contrast, the murine skin exhibited quantitative and qualitative differences from the human flora, in particular by the complete absence of Propionibacterium acnes, the dominant bacterium on sebum-rich areas of human skin. The normal microbial profile of the human grafts was maintained throughout the experimental period despite the novel environmental milieu. There was little contamination of the grafts from the normal murine flora. It was concluded that the grafted human skin would provide a realistic model for studying the ecology of human cutaneous micro-organisms.